Shoving this in here, since I got a PM about Balance and the Song and making a new thread seems like unnecessary clutter.
First, trying to conceive of Order and Chaos in musical terms is a good place to start, since the heart of everything is the Song of Creation, living fabric of the game universe.
Imagine a symphony orchestra, led by a single conductor: the Maker. The (theoretical) original Song of Order is exactly that. Every player plays the same melody. It is simple. It is pure. There are no harmonies, and no improvisation. The Song shapes what is, and the conductor exercises full control over every note and tempo change.
Note that the blighted Song is also exactly that. It promises a return to perfect Order, but under the control of a new conductor -a new Maker. Hold that in your mind, because we’ll come back to it. The important takeaway is the idea of Order as the first Song, the one that defines the original state of creation and impetus for revolution in the pre-veil world. This is the time before the Fall, the time of the true Sun’s dominion, when everything sang the same.
On the other end of the spectrum is Chaos: utter dischord and dissonance. Each member of the orchestra is free to choose their own tune, regardless of how their particular melody might conflict with songs being played around them. Not only is no coherent music created from the whole, but such Chaos doesn’t even exalt the individual musician, despite her complete agency and control, because the potential beauty of each player’s song is lost in the cacophony of the rest. The forces of Chaos aren’t represented by any one united faction in game (which should come as no surprise, being what it is) though I suspect Andruil and some of the Red Jenny-esque elements of the Forgotten Ones may have come close to actively pursuing chaos for chaos’ sake.
So we have Order and Chaos. Black and White.
Now we turn to Grey.
Musically, Grey is harmony. It’s neither the single, immutable Song of absolute Order nor the cacophony of Chaos, but a joining of individual melodies in a deliberately shared and orchestrated experience. Each player relinquishes a small part of their agency: not to a single all-powerful conductor, but to each other. It’s a contract of compromise, freely entered, that allows the creation of a Song greater and richer than each player’s individual contribution would be on its own.
It is no coincidence that this is precisely how Solas describes the magic of ancient Elvhenan.
Solas: “Some spells took years to cast. Echoes would linger for centuries, harmonizing with new magic, in an unending symphony. …It must have been beautiful.”
This is immortal Elvhenan in its earliest days, when members of what would become the the elvish Pantheon would have stood first among equals, if they were acknowledged at all. It describes Solas’ ideal society, the one he desperately wants and is willing to sacrifice for, yet does not believe can persist. Over and over, he has seen that slowly, inevitably, groups are driven to play ever louder and more stridently, desiring their particular melody to be heard above others, drowning out the rest until the cycle must be reset by violent removal from the Song.
This is Solas' purpose in the DA universe. It is his great duty, his burden.
As I touched on in the OP: there is a deep, fundamental connection between choice and magic in DA. They are, in theory, one and the same: the intersection between Option and Will, the power of the individual to literally change the world around them, in game and out. Solas’ primary concern is the restoration and maintenance of Balance, because balance is what makes the exercise of free will (–choice–) possible.
In this, his objectives are largely aligned with Mythal’s: she offers the world guidance, not command, but the side he’s actually on in terms of the great War is that of the individual. That includes you, the player. His cause is the defense of individual agency, of sentient beings’ ability to choose for themselves. The fundamental evil that he identifies in the blight lies in what it steals from the infected: free will. Choice. The blight is a direct, overwhelming threat to the balance that exists at the heart of the DA universe.
Although he places himself in direct opposition to the (false) Sun in this, that doesn’t necessarily mean that he is the Earth’s vassal. Remember his reaction if the Inquisitor drinks from the Well, and why he is so adamant that he will not. The Blight overpowers individual Will directly, but the guarantee of its free exercise is also taken by the Well. A measure of agency is the price of the power it holds. Like Mythal’s interaction with the mortal world in general, the Well’s power is largely limited to subtle influence and guidance- it speaks in whispers, not shouted demands- but as we see in the Inquisitor’s actual encounter with Flemyth, the drinker’s ability to exercise free will is still ultimately at her mercy. You may act as you like… until she chooses not to let you.
That is why balance is necessary. That is why Solas is necessary, as its ultimate advocate and protector.
(As an aside, it is also why he finds the concept of binding Cole so repellent- even if he is the one holding the leash.)
A noble purpose, certainly. But it would be a disservice to Solas’ character not to immediately follow with the list of sins he has committed in its name. At the Temple of Mythal, he mentions an old saying of his people: “the healer has the bloodiest hands”. That's certainly an apt metaphor, as there's little doubt he has spilled more blood in service of this cause than any other single entity in the history of Thedas.
The blood of the Sun, before the Willing Fall from Eden. The blood of countless elves during his failed rebellion in ancient Arlathan, compounded during the successful one, and in the apocalyptic slaughter of the civil war that followed. All who sacrificed their lives for the Andrastean rebellion, and have died in the name of the Chantry since. The blood of every man, woman, and child killed by darkspawn since he set Corypheus on the path to freeing him as “Dumat” to begin his work anew.
He carries the weight of these necessary deaths – millions of them- because without the preservation of free will and choice, there is no purpose to life itself. Peace at such a cost would be no different than defeat.
…and so he fights.
*rests her head in her hands*
This got away from me a bit, but that's my take on Solas, behind his masks. This is who he is: the healer with bloody hands. He is not perfect, but he is Good- even when he does not believe it of himself- and I care about the character in a kind of fierce, desperate way for that.
Anyway. If there’s a chance his Maker watches over these boards: thank you. Mordin will always be my hopeless LI crush and favorite of Your Children, but you (and those who collaborated with you) have done amazing, masterful work in crafting Solas. I believe in his cause, as every sentient being must, and can’t wait to see what he does next.
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